NFL Films president Steve Sabol remembered as innovative champion of football films

Pro football fans have enjoyed Steve Sabol's work for decades. (Daniel Hulshizer/Associated Press)

NFL Films president Steve Sabol, who died at age 69 after an 18-month struggle with brain cancer, was remembered Tuesday as the pinnacle of his profession – in the words of one friend and colleague, as the Vince Lombardi of sports filmmakers.

Sabol came to NFL Films in the early 1960s as the son of its founder, Ed Sabol, and became its creative touchstone as pro football grew into one of the nation’s most powerful, influential brands and its true national pastime for the new millennium.

“He was like Lombardi. We will not see his likes again,” said Ross Greenburg, who as president of HBO Sports collaborated with Sabol on “Hard Knocks,” “Inside the NFL” and a 2010 Sports Emmy Award-winning documentary on Vince Lombardi.

“What he did for the NFL was magical. Everyone remembers the voice of John Facenda and the music and the cinematography and the shots of Tom Landry in silhouette. Steve and Ed were among the first to figure out you could do more with sports films than throw up interviews and highlights on a wall. They used sports as a backdrop to tell stories.”

Sabol played football at Colorado College, where he was profiled in a 1965 Sports Illustrated story called “The Fearless Tot from Possum Trot,” and returned to his hometown of Philadelphia to work with his father, who turned his love of sports and photography into a business that eventually became NFL Films.

With its use of slow-motion video, dramatic narration and stirring music, NFL Films turned out classics like “They Call it Pro Football,” “Big Game America” and “Autumn Ritual” along with the “Football Follies” series and weekly programs like Sabol’s favorite, “NFL Films Presents,” that helped NFL Films transcend the clichés of sports highlight films.

“They weren’t highlight films. They were cinematic gems,” said Phil Tuckett, a longtime NFL Films producer who now teaches at Dixie College in Utah.

“I would ask him if he ever wanted to do a theatrical film, since he was so immersed in the language of cinema, and he said, ‘No, I’ve found what I wanted to do, and I’m completely fulfilled.’ And that’s why he did reached such legendary status.”

Sabol’s earliest collaborators included his father, who was inducted last year into the Pro Football Hall of Fame; newscaster John Facenda, who narrated some of NFL Films’ most memorable projects, and composer Sam Spence, who wrote hundreds of tunes for the company.

“This is sad news,” Spence said from Munich, Germany, where he conducted dozens of recording sessions from NFL Films. “Steve was a strong individual. He changed the direction in music, and I was the tool to change it. I’m very grateful he made my music so popular.”

A more recent collaborator was NFL executive and former ABC Sports president Howard Katz, who said Sabol’s fingerprints will remain on every NFL Films project.

“There is not a producer or editor or cameraman who will look at a project without thinking ‘What would Steve want?’ or ‘How would Steve do this?’” Katz said. “That will be where the bar is set.”

NFL Films’ headquarters in Mount Laurel, N.J., is a shrine to Sabol’s talent, with its 90-plus Emmy awards won by NFL Films, and his collection of art, sports board games, dinosaurs, milk caps, matchbooks and bug sprayers; and his inquiring mind, with boxes of index cards bearing ideas for future film projects.

“His favorite saying was that life is great, but football is better,” Katz said. “But it wasn’t just about football for him. He was a real Renaissance man, and his mark will live forever.”

Sabol was diagnosed with cancer last year but continued making regular visits to the office until this summer.

“He was the boss’ son, but he applied himself in a way you would think he was just a kid off the street, devoting his life to something he cared about,” Tuckett said. “I’ve never been around anyone that I felt as close to in one area as I felt with Steve Sabol, and I think a lot of people felt the same way about him.”

Sabol is survived by his father, who is 96; his mother, Audrey Sabol; his wife, Penny; a sister, Blair, and a son, Casey.